Malaysia EPF Camouflage

In recent announcement by Malaysian government that contributors to EPF(Employees Provident Fund) are allowed to contribute 3% less than the usual mandatory amount until 2010.
The reasons given were:
1) To bring relief to household income.
2) To stimulate Malaysian’s declining economy due to global financial crisis.

The measure taken will perhaps contribute to relief and stimulation but who are the losers.

What had not been explained, as usual, to the unsuspecting contributors, was ‘the catch’.

We had indeed over-looked the implication of this government’s move until my daughter asked me, ‘will it increase her income tax’.

I am sure many were just as unsuspecting as me.
If our income is already in the taxable bracket, any amount that you get out of the 3% will be taxed at its maximum.
Now, do we still think our government is very caring and concerned on our well-being ?
Or they are just simply incompetent!

Clarification:
If your gross income is between Rm28K & Rm58K, and you do not have additional personal insurance for deduction, then you stand to lose out in this 'generous' move from government.
Apparently the target group is on young workers.


Vegee Plot continue....






Today, the 1st brinjal has reached the size of 120mm x 100mm, the purple colour has somehow faded. Perhaps it is being over matured.
A second brinjal had formed and the size is 100mm x 85 mm.

The Vegee Plot

Had cultivated this plot before I left for Kuala Lumpur and that was in mid July.
When I got back in mid September, it was in miserable shape, full of aphids and mealybugs. Since then I had given it a round of insecticide and watered it regularly.

Waa-hoo, what do you know, the tomato is profuse in fruits, the chilli plant has shot up to about 5 feet and full of chillies.

What amazed me most is the brinjal (egg plant), I had expected it to be of the other type which is elongated in shape but this appeared the round type. Not much fruit with it, only 3 that I had noticed.

The earliest formed had become quite big. Photo taken on 8th Nov. showed it to be around 60mm tall & 100mm in width.

As of today, I had it measured again, the width had reached 120mm and the height was 90mm.

I just wonder how big it can really grow.

According to Wikipedia, brinjal is known to grow to 250mm long and 90mm broad, can weigh up to 1 kilogram.

So far with this one, it is already broad enough but I doubt it can reach that length. It may just mature and wilt. I can wait to see what happens next in coming weeks.

Going Bananas!

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Snapshot: Malaysian politicians are going bananas, chasing each other across borders and playing cat and mouse. Lots of denying in changing allegiance or not, do the opposition has enough MPs for a new mandate? All these will unveil in coming months. Again, of course depends on how the present government behaves, if they still do not understand and continue their wayward behaviour, nothing can help them. The opposition had always insisted that they wanted a smooth transition and there is really no hurry for it.



Got a surprise when a cluster of banana plants was bearing fruits. From the shape of the unripe green fruit it looked like ‘Pisang Emas’. One of the best kind?

(doesn't it look yummy, like pisang emas?)

Anyway, yesterday we discovered one of the plants in which its fruit was ripe for harvesting. Finally, got a chance to taste it.

Upon peeling the banana, it looked kind of funny in colour, blackish, instead of the normal white colouring. We had some reservation on what kind of banana was it. You had that funny feeling straight away that it was really odd, might not be banana, could even be poisonous.

In breaking it into half, then it suddenly dawn on us that the blackish colour came from the seeds. It was a wild banana! Still, I got to a taste of it, neutral in taste and a bit sour near the seed, very little flesh, hardly felt it and the seeds were gritty & hard.

(seeds)

Now my problem is how to get rid of this cluster of wild banana plants.

On reflection, do we have an analogy here with our political situation???

Ahmad Ismail...Catalyst To......Come 16/9

Ahmad Ismail is a timely reminder to all Malaysians what UMNO people are made of, it is not the first time that such racial rhetoric was viperously used to rouse the sentiment of Malaysians, such was further confirmed by the UMNO divisions in Penang.

Are we getting used to such racial rhetoric?

Are we really that easy to forget and need constant reminder from the racial guidance of UMNO?

History was told that a country without unity and harmony in its populace would eventually meet its demise. UMNO had been the culprit for the past 30 years and perhaps it is a blessing in disguise that such timely effort is just ripe for a more responsible party to take over the government of Malaysia.
Malaysia needs a different direction that respect our constitutions, the 20 points agreement in the formation of Malaysia and social obligations both written and unwritten to take us into the future.
Such government should not undermine other social groups just for perpetual power in Malaysia. Malaysian problems had manifested themselves and any effort to change is a welcome sight.

Do we really need an apology from Ahmad Ismail?
This monster ought to be in jail long ago and so are some of our present leaders if our government is decent enough.

Our recent 2009 budget is a joke.
In June, we were slapped with fuel and energy increment of between 40 to 60 percent, to reduce subsidy.
As it was said, that the subsidy had inflated to almost 50 billion ringgit, equivalent to our development budget.
In September budget, our expenditure budget was increased, this almost double compared to 4 years ago while development budget is still at about 50 billion ringgit.
The last energy hike had caused inflation, unnecessary hardship, devaluation in ringgit, less domestic spending and discouraged Direct Foreign Investment.
Quite naturally, the government spending is increased, due to inflation. This is a vicious circle, inflation, more hardship and more spending. The biggest losers of all are those who save their money in fixed deposit, ASN, ASB, A Wawasan, EPF and insurance. How much do they really worth in a few years time under the present policy?
I do not expect the PM to know much in economy, though he is the Finance Minister but the 2nd Finance Minister had bad history, ought to be replaced immediately.

Never mind, come 16th September ……….

Interesting Online Streaming Of Results From Permatang Pauh By-election.

A lot of attention was given to the just concluded by-election at Permatang Pauh constituency.
Many Malaysians take it as a start of things to come, for a new Malaysia where better racial harmony, more transparency, less corruption and improved judicial system, are anticipated.
The end result is DSAI won with a majority of 15671 votes over the BN candidate. It is a big enough margin for the BN government to revise their approach in the governance of Malaysia and the anticipations of all Malaysians? Let’s hope so.

However, there were interesting reports online, right from the close of poll to the final results announced at around 21:47 hours whereby Anwar – 31,195 votes; Arif – 15,524 votes and Hanafi – 92 votes (total – 46,811), giving Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim a majority of 15,671 votes.
The total turnout was 81.01% (NST quoted), there was no mention on the number of spoilt votes. If the 81.01% can be taken as correct, then the total number of 58,459 registered voters will give us a number of 47,358 voters that turned out to vote on 26th Augusted 2008 at Permatang Pauh and the spoilt votes would be 547 votes.

Many of us were interested to know the result, earliest possible and yours truly included.

6.40pm – As quoted through NST online, an official from the election commission announced that the turnout is about 63%, meaning only about 35,829 voters turned out to vote. Just an estimate, I believe, quite easily done as there are only 28 voting centers and I believe the numbers are already tallied and a glance can possibly give you a rough estimate across the board, if the figures showed every number from each center is in the sixties percentage.

8.00 to 9.00pm – My wife called and told me that over TV3, evening news, it was announced that Anwar had garnered more than 29K votes, while Arif obtained 14,444 votes (remembered this clearly, as someone commented on the not so nice sounding of four in Chinese). This was already unassailable at that point.

8.32pm – Malaysiakini unofficially reported, Anwar – 31,949 votes; Arif – 14,297 votes and Hanafi – 74 votes.

In summary:

6:40pm – Election commission - Turnout 63% - 35,829 votes
8.10pm – TV3 – Anwar (29000 +, - 1K); Arif (14444) - 43,444 (+ or – 1,000) votes counted
8.32pm – Malaysiakini (unofficial) – Anwar (31949); Arif (14297) Hanafi (74) - about 46,320 votes counted.
10.35pm – NST – final result – Anwar (31195); Arif (15524); Hanafi (92) & 81.01% turnout = 47,358 votes.

Throughout the evening right until the final result was announced, every follower of the election result would be under the impression that the turnout was between 65 to 63 percent. It was certainly a surprise that the final result turned out this way. 81.01 percent!

Are we forgetting something? Could it be the postal votes factor or the online reporting had not been accurate.
But from the flow of results, I believe the majority could have been slightly higher but not that much to show it to be more dramatic. To the gamblers who bet on the difference, this could be win or lose and large sum could change hands, poor buggers!

But if the initial quote of 60 to 65% were to be correct, also mentioned by the election commission as quoted by NST at 6.40pm on election day, than the implication is significant. There are about 8,800 votes that are not caste on the same day. The main-stream-media had since withdrawn all the sixties odd percentage from their online news portal.
The lesson to learn from this is: it is never easy to cover live events if it is necessary to cover up some of the truth.

Is Lying Our Best Policy?

We had been taught that it is difficult to lie and dishonest then to be sincere and honest. The more you lie, the more you will have to cover up, especially if you are a public figure.
Have our politicians figured this out, yet.
It is difficult to believe whatever our government says anymore.
Our Malaysian government made mistakes and every time in order to cover up, they made bigger fools of themselves. This leads us quite naturally to believe that our leaders are not capable of the tasks at hand and people who read both sides of the news would not be confident or comfortable with the present bunch in power.

Good News – Fuel Reduction.
The fuel price will decrease from today….Great!
They went on to say that it was not politically motivated by the coming P44 by-election.
Just deep concern for the suffering Malaysians, as on July inflation was up 8.5%. (Wait till you get your August electricity bill, easily 25% more than the previous month)
Why can’t they just keep quiet.
Didn’t they ever think of this before the drastic fuel increment?
It is too late to be sorry after you have beaten someone, half dead - just compensate for the suffering and the medical bill.
The more the government tried to show concern, after the fact, it only sounded so insincere and incompetent. Are they trying to take us as fools.

Look at the price reduction as tabulated:
It was further said that the government would maintain the subsidy at 30 sens for petrol and 50 sens for diesel. However, until the end of this year, the ceiling price is capped at the max. prices already happened this year.

Can you really believe what the government is telling us?
All these subsidies is nonsense, the price that is been increased the most and now reduced that least. It seems they are just habitual liars.
From the set of figures, it also shows that there is no policy to encourage more efficient use of fossil fuel, meaning the government does encourage inefficiency?
With present technology, most mechanical minded people will tell you that diesel engine is a more efficient engine. Most efficient petrol engines will require Ron97.
What they are literally telling us is to use 1960s technology in our transportation. Little wonder our fuel usage keeps pilling up.

Touch N Go Card.
In another separate matter, the customer service department head told us that its card only has a lifespan of 10 years.
When asked for the reason, he said like all electronic products there is wear & tear, as such only last for about 10 years.
Another typical case of lying, do our Mycard will only last for 10 years.
What he should have said, we like to make a bit of money out this, after-all it is only a ringgit a year.
We, off course, will hope to keep the RM15 if the customer were to abandon the usage totally. The same reason why we have so few reload centres around, where you can reload free of charge.
If we are inconsistent with what we say, we have to be lying!

Do Malaysians Still Trust Their Main Stream Media

At the end of the day, can the BN government come out of this constant political manoeuvre of late by the opposition and smell like roses.
Since the 8th of March, 12GE, the opposition had been taking potshot at the government with accusations and the likelihood that the opposition will had enough crossover to form the government.
Five states had already been claimed by the opposition since the March results and it takes little imagination that there is such possibility.
The government since then had been playing big suckers to entertain most lawmakers and states by giving increased allocations and more projects.
Any negligence in the past, had been promised with renewed seriousness, and in Sabah, the illegal migrant problem.
If things were not right in the beginning and there is no policy change from the authorities, there is little to convince the Sabahans that the illegal migrant problems will be ‘investigated’ thoroughly. Pardon me, I do not recall any investigation and the present exercise in flushing out all illegal migrants will prove futile and could just be a waste of time and money.

Back to the game, opposition versus government.

It seems the government is not good at this and falls in the opposition’s trap every so often.
Mostly out of their own ignorance and arrogance, still hoping that the main-stream-media will report favourably and ignore whatever mistakes/contradictions there are in their reports.
There is a limit in which the media can do, if the government do not stop exposing contradictory statements and provide stupid answers or out of spike, give sweeping statements which either means nothing or just plain stupid. They will not know what hit them when the cards crumble.
The quality of people running the government plays an important role, take for instance, the Anwar sodomy charge, there is nothing to show presently that Saiful, the accuser, is telling the truth. Statements from the government only pointed to the rule of law and quite unbalance, if the pursuit seems to be one sided, as it is been done now. How on earth can you ask the Malaysians to believe, if such people also have the internet access for alternative news.

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The by-election in P44, Permatang Pauh would be interesting, perhaps it is a blessing in disguise for the government, if they can wake up from the state of self-denial. Should Anwar able to win convincingly by historical margin, it goes to show ‘proper news’ can reach its readers despite government attempt to subdue them. Should the reverse happens, the MSM is still effective in forming the perception. Which then, is sad for Malaysia.